The US was yesterday expected to sue China at the WTO over alleged trade law breaches as part of its planned trade announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person with knowledge of the plans.
Planned US tariffs on China could also hit US$50 billion of Chinese imports, the Journal said, citing the individual.
US President Donald Trump was poised to unveil sanctions against China for what he called the theft of US intellectual property, fueling fears of a trade war as Beijing vowed to retaliate.
Photo:AFP
White House spokesman Raj Shah said that Trump would announce actions following an “investigation into China’s state-led, market-distorting efforts to force, pressure and steal US technologies and intellectual property.”
According to Trump’s schedule, released by the White House on Wednesday evening, he is to sign “a presidential memorandum targeting China’s economic aggression.”
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a pre-emptive warning, saying in a statement yesterday that Beijing “will certainly take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests.”
It is just weeks since Trump short-circuited White House deliberations and announced a raft of sanctions on foreign-produced steel and aluminum off the cuff.
That move prompted the resignation of White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, a global stock market sell-off, legal disputes and threats of retaliatory measures.
On Wednesday, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the prospect of a trade war was a growing threat to the world’s largest economy.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) on Tuesday urged Trump to not act “emotionally,” but the impulsive president is showing no sign of backing down.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently put a separate proposed package of US$30 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports on the president’s desk.
And Trump appears to have agreed to at least that amount, as he tries to fulfill campaign promises to get tough on “cheating” by US trade partners, which he has said have destroyed American jobs.
The US trade deficit with China ran to a record US$375 billion last year — but US exports to the country were also at a record.
Washington has long accused Beijing of forcing US companies to turn over proprietary commercial information and intellectual property as a condition of operating in China.
Trump claims to have built up a generally good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), whom he has praised for his role in pressuring North Korea over its nuclear program.
However, the trade dispute threatens to cast a pall over those relations, especially given the recent warnings from Beijing.
A senior official in Lighthizer’s office said on Wednesday that the administrations of former US presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama had attempted over the decades to coax China into respecting market economics and trade liberalization, but had all failed.
The Trump administration opened an investigation in August last year acting on a series of allegations against China, including that as a condition of doing business, Beijing forces US companies to enter joint ventures and transfer technology and trade secrets to domestic partners, and that US firms are not able to license intellectual property in China as freely as Chinese companies.
US officials have also alleged that China has hacked US networks and conducted industrial espionage to steal US intellectual property.
Xi sent his top economic advisor, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴), to Washington this month to discuss trade tensions, but a US official said that at no point had the Chinese made a constructive proposal.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
DISPUTE: A Chinese official prompted a formal protest from Tokyo by saying that ‘the dirty head that sticks itself out must be cut off,’ after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks Four armed China Coast Guard vessels yesterday morning sailed through disputed waters controlled by Japan, amid a diplomatic spat following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan. The four ships sailed around the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) to Taiwan, and which Taiwan and China also claim — on Saturday before entering Japanese waters yesterday and left, the Japan Coast Guard said. The China Coast Guard said in a statement that it carried out a “rights enforcement patrol” through the waters and that it was a lawful operation. As of the end of last month,
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